The Vivisectionist (52 page)

Patrick followed the throw with a crouching left-handed punch, aimed right at Stephen’s nose. This was a move he had practiced a thousand times, but had never employed to the point of contact. A smile turned up the corners of his mouth as he anticipated the satisfying crunch of Stephen’s nose. In mid-punch, Patrick remembered the fresh wound and pulled back slightly, not wanting to injure his hand further.

Stephen looked up to see Patrick’s ruined hand descending towards his face, and jerked his left hand up. With his arm fully extended, Stephen would have just reached Patrick’s chest with the knife, but Patrick helped him again. Unable to stop, Patrick’s momentum carried his chest directly into the knife held by Stephen’s locked arm.

The knife slipped easily between Patrick’s ribs and sliced through his heart just as Patrick’s fist reached Stephen’s nose. Stephen jerked his head to the side and his cheek took the brunt of the dying punch. Gasping and pulling both hands up to his chest, Patrick toppled over. For a second Stephen flailed and kicked to get away, but soon saw that Patrick wasn’t trying to pin him down—Patrick's life was quickly fading away.

Extricating himself from the dying man, Stephen got to his feet and stood a pace away from Patrick. He watched as the crazy man’s eyes turned glassy and unfocused; listened as the man’s breathing hitched and stopped. When he had seen no movement for several seconds, Stephen closed his eyes. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before he turned around and faced Jack.

“Can you untie me now?” asked Jack.

“I don’t think I should,” replied Stephen. “I think I’ll just go to your house and get your parents.”

“You can’t do that,” said Jack. “You’re in this now—you just killed that man.”

“That,” said Stephen, pointing, “was self-defense. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that.”

“Except for the fact that you don’t have any evidence,” said Jack. “How will this look? It’s his hotel—we’ve just been breaking in. One day he catches us in his place, so you stab him?”

“There’s got to be some evidence around here. That guy’s a killer. You said so,” argued Stephen.

“I 
think
 he’s a killer. But I don’t have any hard proof. The worst he did was cut up my leg,” said Jack.

Stephen took a step closer to Jack and surveyed his leg—“Actually he didn’t really cut up your leg. Looks like he was doing a tattoo.”

“Really?” Jack craned his neck to see. “I thought it didn’t hurt as much as I expected. Yeah, so what proof do you have of anything?”

“Shit,” said Stephen, thinking about Jack’s logic. “So what do I do then?” He was sure that he could get his parents to understand, but it did seem like a pretty outlandish story. Stephen started to consider talking to police about the hotel.

Jack seemed to be reading his mind—“Can you even imagine what the sheriff would say? He already thinks we’re up to something. I don’t think he’s going to give you the benefit of any doubt.”

“Hey, don’t forget—you shot a man,” countered Stephen. “I think they’ll be able to test your hand and find out that you shot him.”

“Yes, that’s why I need to convince you not to talk,” explained Jack. “If we just do things my way, we’ll be okay.”

“Alright, what’s ‘your way’?”

“Simple,” began Jack, “we get cleaned up, go back to my house, and then we’ll just act like nothing happened. You go back home tomorrow anyway, and I’ll come back here and clean up.”

“How are you going to clean up?” asked Stephen.

“There’s a closet with a bunch of chemicals I can use to dissolve the bodies. He’s got a room set up for it, and it doesn’t leave any evidence,” said Jack. He had actually read the details of this process in Patrick’s library, but he didn’t want Stephen to know about the existence of any tangible evidence.

“What, like acid? I heard that doesn’t work,” challenged Stephen.

“It’s more than that—there’s a whole process with an oven and stuff,” said Jack.

“What if you get caught?” Stephen asked.

“Then you’ll already be gone and I’ll just take the blame. After all, I tricked you into coming back today—I really feel bad about that,” said Jack.

Stephen considered this. He didn't trust Jack. “I don’t know, I think I’ll just tell your parents and let the cops figure it out.”

Both boys stayed silent while while Stephen considered this course of action and Jack tried to think of a way to talk him out of it.

“How about this,” Jack finally said, “you untie just my right hand and I’ll write a confession. Then, you just have to mail it to yourself, and you have an alibi if I ever get caught.”

If he had thought about this idea for more than a few seconds, Stephen would have recognized all the potential problems with this alibi, but he wanted a clean way out—without having to tell any parents or police about all the break-ins and especially not killing the crazy man.

“Okay,” Stephen relented, “but I get to tell you exactly what to write.”

“Deal,” said Jack. “See if there’s any paper in one of these cabinets.”

Stephen had to venture to Patrick’s room to find paper and an envelope, but he eventually got a full confession letter in Jack’s hand. It had all the points that Stephen considered important—how Jack had acted alone, how Jack had accidentally killed the men, and how he was sorry. He imagined getting the letter in the mail once he was safely back at home.

“Will you promise me something?” asked Jack.

“What?”

“Will you promise not to use the letter unless you absolutely have to? Like if I get caught and the police are investigating?”

“They’re going to want to know why I didn’t tell anyone that you had gone on a killing spree,” said Stephen.

“You just say that you thought it was a big joke,” said Jack. “Tell them I was always joking around like that.”

Stephen thought about it and agreed—“Okay, but the second I hear something about the hotel, I’m going right to the cops.”

“Thanks,” said Jack. He looked down at his bonds and then back to Stephen. He raised his eyebrows.

“Oh yeah, right,” said Stephen.

He untied Jack and Jack got his first look at his new tattoo. High up on his thigh, the tattoo seemed invisible except for the weeping blood. “Baal,” read Stephen. “Is that his name?”

“It was,” said Jack.

Stephen Alexander graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute just ten years after he killed a killer. The condo he rented on Ashland street featured lots of light, hardwood floors, and boxes stacked up near the doorway. He was moving out the next day—Sunday—and after putting the bulk of his stuff in storage, he would head south and west.

He swept the floors and admired his view of the courtyard for the last time. He'd spent hours on the bench at this window—it was his favorite place to read. Stephen had avoided socializing in college. He was serious about his studies, and they always seemed to conflict with everyone else’s busy itinerary of parties and screwing around. But, he always enjoyed watching the world pass by, and sometimes spent hours with an unfinished assignment on his lap while he stared out this window.

Stephen had proved an excellent student. With his major in biochemistry, he was unofficially Pre-Med, but hadn’t yet taken the entrance examination. When he admitted the truth to himself, he didn’t have a firm idea of what he wanted to do. In fact, his next move after graduation had remained completely unmapped until very recently.

He swept the last dirt into his dustpan and readied himself for several more trips down the stairs, but he had more pressing business first. Stephen squared the opening of the last trash bag and dropped both the dirt and the dustpan in. Then, he unfolded the flaps of the box on top, and removed a shoebox. He had intended to store this box along with the rest of his stuff. He changed his mind.

He took the shoebox to the bench and pulled out its contents for the last time.

Family Disappears En Route to Vacation

Portland, Maine—A family of four, recently reunited, vanished without a trace after leaving their Maine home for a summer vacation. Charles and Sheri Palmer, divorced but recently reconciled, left last Saturday and expected to reach Florida by Tuesday, according to family. With reservations in Orlando, they hoped to visit several attractions while they celebrated Charles’s recent career success.

…

Stephen read the article again and thought about his friend Ben. The last time he saw Ben in the hospital, Stephen never imagined he would never see him again. He heard of their disappearance a couple of weeks after returning home. His mom had broken the news and then Stephen had found the newspaper article online and printed it out.

Next in the box he pulled out the confession letter from Jack. Stephen had never opened it because he never needed to use it. He supposed Jack had taken care of everything at the hotel, but hadn’t given it a lot of thought after returning home. Shocked by the events of that summer, he happily forgot everything and tucked away the letter so that he could return to a normal summer. Eventually he started to think of the shoebox as his protection against the past—anything that reminded him of that summer went in the box and out of his thoughts.

Neighbor Convicted in Gabe Vigue Disappearance

Durham, Maine—The entire community in this small town was shocked and saddened by the disappearance of Gabe Vigue late last year. Another shock was delivered when the police arrested neighbor and friend of the Vigue’s, Bill Anderson for the abduction of Gabe. Although little physical evidence tied Anderson to the crime, the prosecutor was able to paint a compelling picture of his guilt.

…

The most recent printouts in the box were from a small-town Texas newspaper detailing the disappearance of a boy from a pre-school. Stephen’s one connection to his past was a habit that he never questioned—when he was bored and had a computer in front of him, he would always look up “Gabe Vigue” and see what came up. One day an article appeared from a small Texas newspaper that compared a recent kidnapping to the case of Gabe. Reading the details, Stephen had to agree, the case was very similar. What really made the article jump off the page was the name of the reporter credited for the story. The byline read “P. Bateman.”

Stephen intended to head for the Texas town in the morning to see if he could discover the true identity of the reporter and perhaps even look around for an abandoned hotel. If he was right, he would discover his one-time friend Jack, entering into his new avocation. If he was wrong, then he would be happy to be wrong.

He put down this last article and gathered all the papers into one neat pile. He broke apart the old, tattered shoebox and added it to the pile. All the contents and the shoebox were then stuffed deep into the plastic trash-bag. He knotted the top and looked at his apartment for the last time.

The next morning, he drove.